AsianScientist (Sep. 10, 2013) - Have you ever heard a song on the radio but weren't able to recall the artiste or the name of the song?

Researchers at the Baidu-I2R Research Center (BIRC) in SIngapore have developed a music search technology using query-by-example music search to help users obtain song information from just a sound clip.

BIRC is a joint laboratory between A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) and Baidu, China's leading Internet search engine provider. The center was formed in July 2012 and has since developed speaker verification and language processing technologies.

More recently, BIRC launched the Baidu Music Search technology (听歌识曲), which literally translates to "hear a tune and know the song". The technology is embedded within the Baidu Music App, which has been downloaded over half a million times from both the Google Play Store and iTunes China.

It identifies music playing over the air by its "unique music fingerprint" made up of its audio waveform, before returning the song title, artiste name, and album art within seconds. The technology taps on several million music items with copyrights from Baidu Music database, which synchronizes with 17 music lists, including the Billboard Hits and UK Chart.

Users can also share song information with their friends through various social networking platforms.

"We are delighted to see BIRC continue to bear fruit. Multimedia search is a key area of our joint laboratory’s research, and we are confident that this latest technology will greatly enhance the experience for music fans when they use Baidu Music," said Wang Haifeng, Chief Scientist (Basic Technologies), Baidu.

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Source: A*STAR.
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